Vacation Nation

At least they waited until the vacation season was over. In what can only be seen as an attempt to stage a hilarous end of summer practical joke, the spokeswoman for a small business entrepreneur association has actually suggested that Germans go on vacation too much and that they should cut their annual leave time down from six weeks to four.

Cutting vacation time in Germany? Hardy, har, har. That’s a good one.

Es gibt Themen, bei denen verstehen die Deutschen keinen Spaß.

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Maybe we can start with the professionally unemployed. I’m always surprised, though I’m not sure why now, to see someone on t.v. described as “Arbeitssuchend” that still managed to purchase a t.v. nicer than mine and seems to be in no shortage of new clothes. If your holiday lasts longer than a season of Big Brother, it’s time to find something to do during the day.

On a side note, I’m surprised to find out that such a mercantilist country like Germany would even allow enough small businesses to exist that they would require their own association.

On an even more random side note, I just got back from my wonderful 2 1/2 week vacation to Israel. Some German behind me in the second security check had somehow managed to forget he was boarding an aircraft and stuck a 30 cm pair of scissors in his carry on. When confronted by 3 rather upset looking security officers, he was only able to manage a timid “whoops!” as consolation. While the desire to engage in some high quality arts and crafts must be great on any trips so far away from the Father land, why, zum Teufel would he bring something so monstrous along to a country that has, let’s just say, a rigourous security process? Could he never rest until he had made a paper maché of the manger scene in the city where it actually happened? Did he want to prune anybody’s hedge? Did he want to take out a couple of Jews for old time’s sake? What gives?

How stupid are people, really? Don’t they realize that no-one really “gives them” time off?

Let’s say your work/year comprises 2080 hours, out of which 80 are “paid” vacation days. What you’re getting in reality is 2000 hours of pay adjusted to 2080 paid hours.

It that 2080 hours of pay is derived from 1840/2080 instead, which is the case in “generous” Germany, then you shouldn’t be surprised to get paid in aggregate 8% less – before taxes, that is. Which looks even more absurd given that the lower take home pay in Germany also yields less purchasing power and lower productivity, a calculation founded entirely in pay-to-output.

This is what I tell the pups at work: you can take all the vacation time that reasonably can, just don’t expect to get paid for it: work hard and play hard all you like, if that’s what you like. We aren’t going to get as obsessed about your “leistung”. Then again, if one is prone to board a plane with hedge clippers or pruning shears, maybe they should…

Welcome home, Jacob! I hope you took to higher elevations in Israel, given the coastal heat and dust this time of year.

No. I was hot and dusty the whole time. They are experiencing a massive heat wave, which I was lucky enough to catch. I felt like I was marinating every time I stepped outside.

As for me, I’m self-employed, so the holiday/pay ratio is immediately obvious. Of course, new EU plans to declare vacationing an official “right” seems a bit strange to me; they want to pay to send young and poor Europeans abroad to learn about other countries, all on my dime. Italy must be even nicer when some other sucker is back in Bargteheide paying for it.

German take home pay is extremely low anyway. I’m still shocked when I hear what some people my age with University degrees are making. What can you really do with 1,300 Euros a month when you are 30? When I explain, that adjusted for cost of living, I made more money bagging groceries when I was 17 people really have a hard time believing me.

The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.
- Frederic Bastiat

The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.
- Margaret Thatcher

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed — and hence clamorous to be led to safety — by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
- H.L. Mencken

It is like information theory; it is noise posing as signal so you do not even recognize it as noise. The intelligence agencies call it disinformation. If you can float enough disinformation into circulation you will totally abolish everyone's contact with reality, probably your own included.
- Philip K. Dick

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.
- Henry Kissinger

Hegel, installed from above, by the powers that be, as the certified Great Philosopher, was a flat-headed, insipid, nauseating, illiterate charlatan, who reached the pinnacle of audacity in scribbling together and dishing up the craziest mystifying nonsense. This nonsense has been noisily proclaimed as immortal wisdom by mercenary followers and readily accepted as such by all fools, who joined into as perfect a chorus of admiration as had ever been heard before. The extensive field of spiritual influence with which Hegel was furnished by those in power has enabled him to achieve the intellectual corruption of a whole generation.
- Arthur Schopenhauer

German schadenfreude knows no bounds, particularly when it comes to the United States. The country loves to feel superior to a superpower like America. Yet Germany also harbors a childish infatuation with Obama — one which has little political grounding. The reasons are psychological. …The criticism of America has always been a bit infantile. One is familiar with the theory from psychoanalysis, when people talk about transference, or when suppressed feelings or emotions are overcome by projecting them onto others. It may work for a while, improving one’s feeling of self-worth by devaluing an imagined adversary. But it always falls short. Which is why the ritual must be constantly carried out anew.
- Jan Fleischhauer

Intellectuals, in the words of the writer Eric Hoffer, "cannot operate at room temperature." They are excited by daring opinions, clever theories, sweeping ideologies, and utopian visions of the kind that caused so much trouble during the 20th century. The kind of reason that expands moral sensibilities comes not from grand intellectual "systems" but from the exercise of logic, clarity, objectivity, and proportionality.
- Steven Pinker

The difference between Greek pessimism and the oriental and modern variety is that the Greeks had not made the discovery that the pathetic mood may be idealized, and figure as a higher form of sensibility. Their spirit was still too essentially masculine for pessimism to be elaborated or lengthily dwelt on in their classic literature... The discovery that the enduring emphasis, so far as this world goes, may be laid on its pain and failure, was reserved for races more complex, and (so to speak) more feminine than the Hellenes had attained to being in the classic period.
- William James

A doctrine must not be understood, but has rather to be believed in. We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand. A doctrine that is understood is shorn of its strength. Once we understand a thing, it is as if it had originated in us. And, clearly, those who are asked to renounce the self and sacrifice it cannot see eternal certitude in anything which originates in that self.
- Eric Hoffer

It is unrealistic to expect people to see you as you see yourself. If people reach conclusions based on false impressions, they are the ones hurt rather than you, because it is they who are misguided. When someone interprets a true proposition as a false one, the proposition itself isn't hurt; only the person who holds the wrong view is deceived, and thus damaged. Once you clearly understand this, you will be less likely to feel affronted by others, even if they revile you. You can say to yourself, "It seemed so to that person, but that is only his impression."

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